Vitamins Diary - Nutrition Blog

What happens when I eat chocolate enthusiastically?

Your love for the sugary snack can cause much more than cavities.

1. MOUTHING OFF

The knowledge that chocolate rots your teeth is common. But why? Like an overexcited gym instructor, sugar goes around energising everything it runs into. And this includes the bacteria that eat the enamel on your teeth, leading to dental cavities. A good trick to minimise the acid that bites back at your sweet tooth is to was down any chocolate treat with a couple of glasses of water.

2. BONING UP

Caning candy increases the amount of calcium you lose when you pee, potentially leading to weaker bones or osteoporosis. And while you’re pissing away strength, calcium heads out through your kidneys, leaving deposits that can cause kidney stones. Washing down chocs with soft drinks will make it worse, as many contain phosphoric acid, which increases the amount of calcium you leak when taking… er… a leak.

3. NO BRAINER

The neurons in your brain responsible for memory and learning are fussy eaters - they’ll only take their energy from glucose and so, unless kept sweet, won’t muster the energy to think. However, going on a Cadbury’s diet is not the answer, as a chocolate-induced rise in brain power is short-lived. The excess sugar that fuels your heightened sense of alertness soon runs dry, leaving you running on empty.

4. BAD BLOOD

Your affection for confection causes a blood sugar spike. Insulin takes the excess sugar and pushes it to the brain and heart. The downside: it takes more than it should, leaving you with low blood sugar. This triggers stress hormones into replacing the lost sugar by stealing it from the liver. Minimize the effect by eating the cake as a dessert, not a snack.

5. SWEET HEART

When it comes to sugar, your body is like a cautious bank manager. Every time it has an overload, it saves for a rainy day. To store this energy, it needs to turn it into fat, which is bad news for your heart. Excess blood sugar increases your body’s triglycerides - a type of fat. These are essential for providing your body with energy but, like visits from the in-laws, too many can cause serious heart problems.

6. COLD LOGIC

A spoonful of sugar may help the medicine go down, but if it wasn’t for the sweet siren call, you might not feel ill in the first place. Just a couple of bars of chocolate halve the effectiveness of the white blood cells that fight against cold. So, if you’re feeling run down, opt only for the slow-release sugars in the complex carbohydrates.

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